Americans in Iraq have located much of the art thought to have been looted from Iraq’s National Museum. “The investigators located the vaults in Baghdad over the last week, including five within the museum complex, and forced them open, revealing hundreds of artifacts that had apparently been stored away to protect them from being damaged in an American assault. The finds included ancient jewelry, pottery and sarcophaguses, officials said. The discovery of so many valuable artifacts would support the view of Iraqi museum officials and American investigators who have said that while many irreplaceable antiquities were looted from the museum during the fall of Baghdad last month, the losses were less severe than thought.”
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Go West Young Collector
Traditional Western art is getting serious attention these days. “The trend is to de-ghettoize Western American art and integrate it into the mainstream traditions of American scholarship. Much the same is true, according to dealers, of the market value for these works: prices for 19th- and early-20th-century artists of the West are now approaching the same levels as those for their East Coast peers.”
Florida Phil Prepares For Bankruptcy
The Florida Philharmonic prepares to go out of business. “The Philharmonic changed the locks on its rehearsal hall Wednesday and faxed a legal notice to the governor’s office and mayors of the municipalities where it performs, advising officials of its intention to file for bankruptcy. That notice stated that the Philharmonic “has developed plans to permanently shut down” and that “employment separations are expected to commence on or about May 9.”
Zeffirelli At 80 (Still Going Strong)
Director Franco Zeffirelli has been in the biz for 60 years. He’s got a new play opening in London’s West End. “His timetable is punishing, not least because he is 80 and in frail health after near-fatal complications following a hip operation a couple of years ago. He relies on a cane and any available spare arm. Stairs are hazardous…”
The Mind Behind Wigmore Hall
“William Lyne must qualify as the most un-Australian Aussie ever to set foot on these shores, which he did nearly 50 years ago. He is a man so self-effacing that he would rather sink into a pothole than be hailed by name across a crowded street. If he has tantrums, nobody has seen them. If he has sulks, they are forever concealed behind an indelible smile. He is the opposite of the “temperamental luvvie” type who is supposed to dominate the arts world. Yet for the past 37 years Lyne has run the greatest chamber-music venue in the world, and run it brilliantly. He has been manager of the Wigmore Hall…”
Why Orchestras Are Hurting…
New Jersey orchestras are struggling in the recession. So why do orchestras seem to do so poorly when times are bad? “Everybody knows this is a tough environment. This will be a hard year to even come close to a balanced budget. Every time there is a recession, by definition, orchestras do badly. We are labor intensive – 80 percent of what we do goes to product, and we plan years in advance. There’s not much flexibility.”
Walker To Lay Off Staff
Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center is laying off 5% of its staff in an effort to cut costs without jeopardizing a major expansion of the museum, which focuses on contemporary art. Among the casualties is the Walker’s director of New Media Initiatives, a groundbreaking curatorial position which had won the museum acclaim when it was created. A Walker spokesman said that the major reason for the layoffs was the dismal performance of the museum’s endowment, which has fallen from $200 million to $145 million in the last few years.
Louisville Mining Its American Legacy
The Louisville Orchestra was the first American orchestra to set up its own recording company. It recorded American – one of the most ambitious promotions of American composers ever. “By 1959, when the commissioning component of the Rockefeller grant came to an end, the Louisville Orchestra had commissioned, performed and recorded 116 works by 101 composers.” Now the orchestra is in financial difficulty, and its trove of historic recordings offers an opportunity…
Florida Phil Moves the Goalposts Again
The Florida Philharmonic said last month that it needed to raise $20 million immediately, or it would fold operations. When the absurdity of that goal became clear, the Phil revised the fundraising goal to $4 million by May 10. Now, employees at the Fort Lauderdale-based orchestra have been told that they will lose their jobs unless $500,000 is raised by the end of the week. The fundraising has not been going well, with many donors seemingly fed up with the orchestra’s constant financial crises.
Phil Faces Sad, Angry Public
The plight of the Florida Philharmonic has some members of the public seeing red over the constant pleas for a bailout. In a sampling of letters to the Miami Herald, one reader called the Phil a “bottomless pit,” forever looking to cure its own incompetence with other people’s money. But other letter-writers are begging the orchestra to find a way to stay solvent, lest South Florida be left without a professional-caliber orchestra. Writes one, “The next performance for the Philharmonic would have been Mozart’s Requiem. How fitting.”